“It was the cleanest solution. Minimal violence, maximum control.”
She considers this as she twirls pasta around her fork. “And the people who threatened me? Wallace and Tillman?”
“No longer a concern. They’ve been dealt with.”
“Dealt with how?”
I pick up my whiskey and reply, “I’d rather not go into specifics.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. I brace myself for the questions I don’t want to answer, the judgment I probably deserve.
Instead, she asks, “Why did you protect me? You didn’t know me. I was just some random employee.”
“You weren’t random. I recognized you from the bar.”
“That’s why? Because we had a one-night stand?”
“Partly.” I swirl the amber liquid in my glass. “But also because I heard what they said to you. The threats they made. And I knew that if I didn’t intervene, you’d either become their pawn or their casualty.”
“So you made me yours instead?”
The question lingers between us, unanswered. I don’t have a good response for that one.
We finish our meal, and the conversation drifts to lighter topics. Her work before the acquisition. My education and early career. The shared misery of Chicago real estate and the impossibility of finding a decent apartment without selling a kidney.
She laughs at something I say about my first apartment—a tiny studio with a radiator that screamed like a banshee every winter—and the sound hits me square in the chest. This is what I wanted. This ease, this warmth. A glimpse of who she might be if she weren’t constantly on guard around me.
I pay the check despite her protests. She rolls her eyes but doesn’t push it after I point out that she can cover the next one.
The drive home is comfortable. My driver is behind the wheel with the partition raised, giving us privacy. Kirsten watches the city pass by outside the window with a small smile still playing at her lips.
When we pull up to the building, I walk her to the elevator. We ride up in silence, but it’s a different kind of silence now. There’s no undercurrent there, this time.
At our floor, she steps out first. I follow a few paces behind, giving her space.
At the door to the penthouse, she pauses and turns to face me.
“Thank you,” she says. “For dinner. It was… nice.”
“Nice?” I tease. “That’s all I’m getting?”
“Don’t push your luck.” But she’s smiling. A real smile, the first one she’s given me in days. “I mean it. Tonight was good. Different.”
“Different how?”
“You were honest with me. About the jealousy, about your family, about why you did what you did.” She tilts her head and adds, “I appreciate that.”
I know I should say goodnight, let her go inside, and maintain the fragile peace we’ve built.
Instead, I step closer.
“I meant what I said earlier. About being jealous.”
“I know.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that night at the bar. Watching you in the office every day, being so close but not being able to touch you… It’s been driving me crazy.”
“Menlow…”
